I didn’t realize how much I would miss running until it became something I couldn’t do.
I never considered myself athletic or even particularly active growing up. I was a Boy Scout and enjoyed hiking well-enough, but I was always in the middle of the pack when it came to milestones like the Presidential Fitness Test or running the mile in gym class. In high school, my dyed-in-the-wool “theater kid” identity meant not only that athletics weren’t part of my daily life, but that they were antithetical to it. I would go through phases of working out, but it was a chore to check off a list rather than a core component of my personal practice.
A week or two before my sophomore year of college, I had the opportunity to run sound for a production of Spring Awakening being produced at the gorgeous Lime Kiln Theater just outside of Lexington, VA. The venue’s inviting bowl amphitheater provided an intimate, sylvan atmosphere for the show, canopied by cathedral-ceiling treetops. But the outdoor setting that made the show so magical also meant that we had to set up and pull down the heavy sound equipment for each of the performances to protect the electronics from the elements. By the end of the run, my back was killing me.
For the first few weeks, I figured I had tweaked a nerve or pulled a muscle from the strenuous lifting. My family has a storied history of back issues, so I wasn’t surprised that it might be my turn to join that troubled vertebral lineage. Weeks and months later, though, the pain hadn’t subsided and had shifted throughout my back, hips, and knees.
I had only been living on my own for a year at this point. I was an adult only by definition, over-confident, but under-prepared in the way of the late teen year. I was completely unequipped to deal with the complexities of chronic pain. The doctors I had known my whole life were hundreds of miles away in Cleveland and I had no idea how to find answers. So rather than try to fix it, I accepted the pain as a part of me.
That pain stayed with me, unabated, for the next two years. Most days weren’t excruciating, but it was always there. On the worst days, simple tasks like walking to class were difficult. Putting any weight on my leg would shoot stabs of pain through my knees and hips. The hardest times were those when I had to sit on the sidelines. Games of kickball or hikes to Devil’s Marbleyard weren’t something I could do some days. Few things have been as humbling as having my knee buckle from pain during what should have been the fittest years of my life.
Outwardly, I looked fine. Nothing about what I was experiencing was visible to other people other than an occasional limp. I was still able to lift weights and get myself around campus most of the time, but chronic pain has a way of chipping away at your outlook on life. During that time, I was irritable so often and the optimism by which I had defined myself slowly receded. Everything felt grey.
The summer before my senior year, my now-wife pushed me to go back to the doctor. I had gone the summer before, while home on break, but the prescribed physical therapy had no benefit. It was demoralizing to push my way through the medical labyrinth for so little gain. The experience left me pessimistic about the odds that I could find a way to feel normal again.
But she was insistent that a 20-year old, otherwise healthy, man shouldn’t be living with constant, unexplained pain.
This time, with the knowledge that physical therapy hadn’t moved the needle, the doctor ordered an x-ray and an MRI and found inflammation in my sacroiliac joints near the base of my pelvis. The inflammation and many of my other symptoms indicated a textbook case of ankylosing spondylitis, a degenerative form of arthritis that can result in a characteristic fused spine and hunched back.
The doctors prescribed me a specialized anti-inflammatory followed by an injectable drug that I’ve taken monthly ever since. The relief was near-instant. I remember running barefoot on the lawn of my childhood home pain-free for the first time in two years. It nearly brought me to tears. Those drugs mean that I could move again and likely won’t suffer from the worst effects of the disease.
The years since that day haven’t always been easy. Dealing with a chronic, but manageable, illness comes with countless hurdles; onerous prior authorizations, abysmal specialty pharmacies, occasional flare-ups, and the ever-increasing cost of the drugs that keep the disease at-bay. The list price of my medication has reached $7,000/month in recent years. I’m fortunate that I don’t pay that sticker price thanks to insurance and support programs, but dealing with the red-tape and intentionally obtuse design of the medical system feels like a part-time job I never wanted.
But I’ll put up with almost anything if it means I can move.
By most measures I shouldn’t be a runner. I have arthritis, chronic asthma and was never an athlete in high school or college when most people build those skills and practices. But COVID convinced many of us to do things that we once might have considered out-of-character. Cooped up in a 700-square-foot Los Angeles apartment, I went out to run a few miles with my wife on a whim. It turns out I was pretty good at it.
Running was about conquering my body in those first few years. Even though my arthritis was under control, I felt that the disease was a weakness. That there was a flaw in my body that I had no control over. Even worse, it remains a possibility that my medication could simply stop working at some unknown point in the future. I felt like I was defying the limitations that my body wanted to impose on me each time I tied my shoelaces.
At that time in my life, I think that mindset was important. Feeling like I had something to prove helped me push myself faster and farther. After a year, I ran a 10k. Then a half marathon. Then a full marathon. Then another. Most days, I would run laps on the same one-mile neighborhood loop near my apartment, pushing to shave seconds off of my mile time before my next race. I harbored dreams of someday qualifying for the Boston Marathon and each repetitive lap felt like one mile closer to that goal.
I continued training that way for four years, running dozens of races and setting plenty of PRs along the way. It was satisfying, but that level of training left me feeling fatigued. By the time I moved to Ohio in 2025, running was becoming a chore. I was struggling to meet the increasingly difficult Boston qualifying time, which ticks faster each year. More importantly, I wasn’t feeling the rush of freedom that I used to when I took those first few strides after a long workday. So I decided to rebuild my relationship with running.
I still want to run fast and set ambitious goals, but I’ve tried to move my framing away from trying to overcome my body and towards appreciating what it helps me do.The first step towards doing that was finding some new routes that were less focused on speed and repetition. Rather than endless circles on paved streets, striving for seconds, I fanned out to explore the trails that web outwards from my town. The terrain is much more varied than a paved road. There are hills and hazards and vistas that make you want to slow down to admire your surroundings. The trails have hampered my pace, but expanded my enthusiasm.
I’ve also been less militant about how often I run, how far I run, and how I structure my workouts. I’ve been running less for PRs and more for the way that it makes me feel free. Even throughout the hot and humid Ohio summer, I’ve reconnected with my love of running. It’s different now than it once was; less intense, but more familiar. Like any meaningful relationship, I’m accepting that it will change over time.
Running has shown me that I’m more capable of difficult things than I thought I was. Not only was I capable of running when I wasn’t sure I would be able to walk without pain again, but I could push myself to go further and faster. I can push through a few more miles even when it feels like I have nothing left to give. When I’m injured, I can slow down and rebuild.
On the days when everything clicks and the runner’s high kicks in, I can feel like I’m flying.
That mindset has been transferable to other parts of my life, too. No matter how difficult something might seem, I know that if I keep pushing, it will get easier. Whether it’s writing a book, preparing for my first craft fair this winter, or picking up a new skill; consistency and commitment almost always pay off.
My favorite part about running, though, is that it has trained my ability to notice. I estimate that I ran that same one-mile loop in Los Angeles more than 2,000 times. When you spend that much time in a place with so few distractions, just you and your surroundings, you look for what has changed. The flowers that are blooming that week, which houses are for sale, who’s renovating. Spending time in my community, watching the incremental changes each day, helped me feel more rooted. Neighbors would smile and wave knowingly on my sixth lap of the day. I can only imagine what they thought of me.
My noticing has looked different since moving back to Ohio and my growth out onto the trails. Rather than noticing small changes on a tiny loop, I’ve been watching nature’s changes across a larger area. Each week brings some new excitement. The encouraging arrival of crocus and snowdrops in the late winter, the spring ephemerals’ fleeting emergence, the purple eruption of bee balm and coneflowers in the summer, the warm radiance of goldenrod and asters in the fall. Watching nature change on familiar routes served as a reorientation to the environment that raised me after a decade spent away. Those same changes are now milestones and reminders that I use to track the progress of my life as I build a history in this place.
Marathon #6 is tomorrow and, to be honest, I’ve never felt less prepared for a race. This summer’s heat and humidity has made most of my training runs a slog. I’m not sure how it’s going to go, but I’m grateful that I can attempt something like this. Just lining up at the start still feels like an achievement every time.
I don’t know for how long I’ll be able to have this relationship with running. I’m relying on my body’s cooperation and my medication’s continued efficacy. Hopefully that will mean years, but I try to stay focused on gratitude each day that I can run.
Five minutes before the start of the 2026 Towpath Marathon